Safe and efficient shipping in ice-covered waters requires the consideration of multiple sea ice features. Ice ridges can significantly increase the resistance of a ship; understanding this resistance requires knowing the failure mechanism of ice ridges. Traditionally, this failure mechanism has been studied using analogies to soil mechanics. This thesis provides a new approach to studying ice ridge resistance using a three-dimensional discrete element method to calculate the kinetic responses of an unconsolidated ice ridge interacting with a ship. The proposed approach is used to analyse the effect of ice ridge dimensions (width and depth) and ship hull form on ridge resistance and ridge failure behaviour. A ship-ice ridge interaction is a dynamic ridge failure process involving irreversible ridge deformation. The deformed domain is defined by ice blocks accelerated by and moving with the ship.